Due to the increasing globalization of economies, the need to provide communications between geographically dispersed persons and facilities has increased. For example, a particular business may have facilities located across multiple countries and continents. A further result of increased globalization has been an increase in business travel. The increasing dependence of corporations and persons on Internet-based communications has furthermore made it desirable that mobile workers (so-called “road warriors”) be able to access Internet-based and wireless communications as they travel worldwide. Services that facilitate communications to such mobile persons are commonly referred to as “roaming services”. Considering Internet-based communications as an example, in order to meet the needs of mobile customers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have begun to offer local-call access to the Internet from various locations world-wide, such a service being termed a “roaming” Internet access solution. The requirement for a roaming solution arises primarily because ISPs tend to specialize by geographic area, causing gaps in service coverage. The expansion of network infrastructure, network management and continuous upgrades to meet required reliability and performance standards all place tremendous capital and time burdens on ISPs. For these reason, many ISPs only locate Points of Presence (POPs) in a limited geographic area.
For the reasons set out above, the ability for ISPs to offer Internet roaming solutions, especially to business customers, is becoming increasingly important as many businesses utilize Internet-based communications to replace traditional remote access solutions for their telecommuters and mobile work forces.
In order to provide Internet roaming solutions, some ISPs have begun to share network infrastructure to gain additional geographic reach. This infrastructure sharing might take the form of an agreement to allow users of one ISP to gain Internet access through another ISP's network. FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating such a prior art arrangement whereby a first ISP 10, within a first geographic area 12, facilitates access to a network via a POP 14 to a roaming user 16. The roaming user 16 is a subscriber to a second ISP 18, but through an agreement between the ISPs 10 and 18 obtains service access through the POP 14.
The bilateral agreement between the ISPs 10 and 18 illustrated in FIG. 1 may require building user names and passwords into authentication databases for both the ISPs 10 and 18. Alternatively, an authorization server 20 of the ISP 10 may, upon receiving an access request to the POP 14 from the roaming user 16, initiate a direct authorization procedure with an authorization server 22 of the ISP 18. Both options involve a complex technical implementation in order for one provider to “buy” a small amount of service access time through another provider. The management of such relationships may also be difficult and cost ineffective. For example, consider that the roaming user 16 will pay the ISP 18 for the service access facilitated by the ISP 10. The ISP 18 then is shown to make a payment to the ISP 10.
To summarize, a number of problems are encountered when ISPs attempt to share network infrastructure. Firstly, the creation of a secure authentication scheme over a public access network may be difficult. Secondly, managing accounting information and sharing costs may be complex. Thirdly, providing sufficient scalability may be challenging. These problems become exasperated as ISPs attempt to provide global coverage, requiring that a particular ISP enter into relationships with a large number of other ISPs. This arrangement does not scale well, and the complexity of managing these relationships significantly increase each time a new partnership is established.